It has taken the death of 54 Burmese migrants to provoke the government to redraft a law prohibiting human trafficking. The way the law is set up at the moment, the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act is ineffective.

The National Operation Center on Human Trafficking is part of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. On a national level, the ministry is “designated as a focal point to coordinate prevention and suppression of human trafficking with relevant agencies”. (humantrafficking.go.th)

The Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act defines human trafficking as:

recruitment, buying, selling, disposing of, taking from or sending to any place, detaining or confining, harbouring, or receipts of persons

by means of the threat, use of force, of abduction, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person

for the purpose of exploitation for oneself or for others, if such offence is committed against a child shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in (2) and the consent of the child shall be irrelevant

If you’ve been following news reports on the case of the 54 Burmese migrants who died, there have been six arrests made. None of the charges brought up against those six is related to human trafficking.

This from TNA:

Currently, the Kingdom has a more modest law barring the trafficking of children and women and the new law which prohibits the activity will replace the current one, they said.

Although it’s still unclear what “prohibiting human trafficking” means, a new law will be issued on June 6. To me, this suggests that human trafficking is not even illegal.

I have never really thought about a definition of “human trafficking”. What concerns me is the enormous jump in logic that has seen this case quickly turn into one of human smuggling and not human trafficking. For such a transition, there must be some concrete evidence put forward.

This from the Bangkok Post:

Human trafficking must involve smuggling of people with the specific objective of employing them in slave-like conditions and jobs, such as forced prostitution. People smuggling was a crime of lesser degree. The penalties were also different.

Police originally said there were 121 migrants on the truck, but now say their original count incorrectly included a Thai man who had fainted at the scene and was hospitalised.

The disdain with which the Burmese survivors have been dealt with by Thai authorities is sickening. Again from TNA:

Participants at the meeting told a press conference that the 66 surviving Myanmar workers from the April 10 tragedy would be charged with illegal entry and given a suspended jail term and be fined 2,000 baht (US$63) each.

Workers without money to pay as fine were instead jailed for 10 days, said Immigration Police commander Pol. Lt-Gen. Chatchawal Suksomjit.

TNA is a government news agency, don’t forget. This is all happening too fast for any of it to make sense.

One crucial factor, were this investigation not already a farce, would be to determine why there was an eight-year-old girl on that truck. Remember, by Thai law, “if such offence is committed against a child, shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in (2) and the consent of the child shall be irrelevant”.

This, and many questions, has been left unanswered. The swiftness with which the government wants these Burmese migrants out of the country is perhaps a telling sign.

Even the Bangkok Post article reads that “authorities say that under Thai law human trafficking required an act of exploitation, which was absent from the smuggling of people seeking proper work”.

Proper work? Are you seriously expecting me to believe that taking $160 each from 121 of the region’s poorest people in order to cram them into a container spanning a little more than 13 square meters is not exploitation? Is this how we do job seeking in Southeast Asia? Is taking in excess of half-a-million baht from people who have nothing “to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage”? (Merriam-Webster definition of “exploitation”)

By Thai law, according to a Thai government website, human trafficking IS:

Taking from or sending to any place by means of a position of vulnerability to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation for oneself or for others.

So, were those 121 Burmese exploited? There is so much that we will not be able to find out about this case.

Don’t forget that these immigrants were being brought to Phuket to work. They were not here on holiday. Furthermore, Ranong Provincial Police Superintendent Maj Gen Apirak Hongthong said, “We are working very hard to ensure the arrest of all the suspects and to severely punish them as an example to all those involved in the trafficking of illegal immigrants.” (Gazette)

What are your thoughts on this matter?